Though the narrow elastic fabric of the present invention may be used, either by itself or in combination with other fabrics, in the body encircling portions of articles of apparel it will be herein described in its preferred specific use as the waistband for stretch trousers.
Trouser waistbands generally are made from a plurality of layers of fabric. These layers comprise; a lining to provide stiffness and body in the waistband which is covered with a "curtain fabric" for appearance and to finish the waistband. The curtain fabric and lining fabric are sewn to the outer fabric to provide the waistband. In some instances yet another fabric may be incorporated in the waistband in order to prevent unsightly rollover of the waistband. This is generally a stiffer fabric and may have a curvalinear or concave cross-section so as to aid in reducing the rollover problem. Fabrics and waistbands of this type are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,129,434 and 3,155,986.
With the advent of the use of stretch materials such as double knit fabrics in trousers some stretch materials have been developed for use in waistbands to provide the desired stiffness and stretch. One such material comprises monofilament yarns running in the direction of the width of the fabric woven with textured synthetic yarns running in the direction of the length of the fabric. The woven fabric is coated with a latex composition. The monofilaments provide stiffness in the widthwise direction and the textured yarns and latex stretch in the lengthwise direction.
Another type of waistband which has been used in trousers is described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,757,381. This waistband is an elastic fabric having a portion with less stretch than the remainder of the fabric and with a sewing portion between the stretch portions. The portion having less stretch is meant to extend above the outer trouser fabric and form the trouser waist while the portion having more stretch is inside the trousers to form the waistband.
The prior art waistbands generally suffer from one or more of the following deficiencies; poor washability, poor dry cleanability, lack of shrinkage control, lake of stiffness, lack of body, failure to prevent rollover of the trousers, insufficient elongation for use with stretch trousers, complicated manufacturing techniques of the material itself or of the waistband, excessive costs, poor recoverability and/or resilience and so forth.
Recently some new elastic fabrics have been developed for use as waistbands. One such fabric is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,788,366, wherein monofilament filling yarns are woven with elastic warp yarns using a leno weave. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,788,365 another fabric is disclosed wherein filling yarns are woven with elastic warp yarns in a pronounced rib weave. Though both of these fabrics overcome many of the deficiencies of previous waistbands as described above they are costly, in some instances require a special weave, i.e. leno weave, or cause manufacturing difficulties by requiring the elastic warp yarns to float over the filling yarns to produce a pronounced rib.